A Structural Analysis of the Language of School‐age Children

Westminster College is currently undertaking a research project into the language development of children of school age in conjunction with the Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading. The collaboration represents an attempt to apply Linguistic Science to the work of classroom teachers within the mother‐tongue. The following papers indicate the nature of the project and its possible uses to the teaching profession and students of language acquisition.     

Artistic and Verbal Creative Capacity of 6‐year‐old Children and their Psychopedagogic and Social Conditioning

The subject of the study comprised individual differences of creative achievements among 6‐year‐old children in two basic and qualitatively different kinds of child's activity: verbal and artistic. The aim of the research was both the analysis of the creative capacity level differentiation and pointing out the hierarchy of factors which determine certain inter‐ and intra‐individual as well as inter‐ and intro‐group differences.

The study is based on the concepts of the creativity theory of Wallach and Kogan (1970) and the capacity theory of Renzulli (1986) and Monks (1981) developed within the framework of humanistic and cognitive psychology.

The researcher analysed 6,000 drawings and the same number of oral statements produced by 643 children attending two types of pre‐schools and living in three different habitats. The research also covered teachers working with the 6‐year‐old children.

The following were used in the study: the test ‘Draw‐a‐Man’ of Goodenough; Guilford's tests of divergent thinking; Uszynska's Questionnaire of self‐estimation; The Schaefer's and Aaronson's Classroom Behaviour Inventory Pre‐school to Primary Scale; Popek's Questionnaire of Creative Behaviour ‘KANH’, and Uszynska's Questionnaire for parents.

The results of the research confirm a great differentiation of creative capacity levels of children and suggest that the most significant factors determining them are the pedagogic ones, which may directly or indirectly be influenced by the preschool teacher.     

Gender,popularity and notions of in/authenticity amongst 12‐year‐old to 13‐year‐old school girls

This paper draws on data from a research project investigating gendered identities and interactions of high‐achieving students in Year Eight in England (12–13 years old), particularly in relation to students’ ‘popularity’ amongst their peers. As part of this study 71 students were interviewed from nine different schools in urban, rural and small town locations. From an analysis of participants’ conceptions of the characteristics of ‘popular’ and ‘unpopular’ students, this paper looks in depth at notions of in/authenticity and how it is perceived and judged in relation to the self and others. In particular, the paper focuses on the genderedness of such discourses of in/authenticity as constructed by these students, and relates such concerns to theorizations of ‘impossible’ femininity.     

The Influence of 16‐year‐old Students’ Gender,Mental Abilities,and Motivation on their Reading and Drawing Submicrorepresentations Achievements

Submicrorepresentations (SMRs) are a powerful tool for identifying misconceptions of chemical concepts and for generating proper mental models of chemical phenomena in students’ long‐term memory during chemical education. The main purpose of the study was to determine which independent variables (gender, formal reasoning abilities, visualization abilities, and intrinsic motivation for learning chemistry) have the maximum influence on students’ reading and drawing SMRs. A total of 386 secondary school students (aged 16.3 years) participated in the study. The instruments used in the study were: test of Chemical Knowledge, Test of Logical Thinking, two tests of visualization abilities Patterns and Rotations, and questionnaire on Intrinsic Motivation for Learning Science. The results show moderate, but statistically significant correlations between students’ intrinsic motivation, formal reasoning abilities and chemical knowledge at submicroscopic level based on reading and drawing SMRs. Visualization abilities are not statistically significantly correlated with students’ success on items that comprise reading or drawing SMRs. It can be also concluded that there is a statistically significant difference between male and female students in solving problems that include reading or drawing SMRs. Based on these statistical results and content analysis of the sample problems, several educational strategies can be implemented for students to develop adequate mental models of chemical concepts on all three levels of representations.     

A Developmental and Cross‐cultural Study on the Interpersonal Cognition of Swedish and Japanese Children

The interpersonal cognition of Japanese children is compared with that of Swedish children in an attempt to understand how far sex‐inequality in society influences the interpersonal cognition of children. The findings support the view that the sex‐difference observed in Japanese children is the result of the sex‐inequality in the Japanese society: the sex‐difference observed in Swedish subjects is smaller in comparison with that of Japanese subjects and is insignificant in the older children. The development of emotional and conjectural cognition of Japanese children is affected by the interpersonal relations peculiar to Japanese society.     

Peer and self‐assessment in the first year of university

This paper reviews the literature about peer and self‐assessment in university courses from the point of view of their use, and the suitability of their use, in the first year of university study. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part argues that although first‐year students are involved in many of the studies that report on the use of peer and self‐assessment in higher education, the proportion of these studies that do so is somewhat less than in other year levels. In addition, relatively little of this work directly and explicitly discusses the suitability of peer and self‐assessment for students and courses at this year level. The second part of the paper provides an introductory exploration of the relationship between peer and self‐assessment, and specific features of first‐year assessment, learning and teaching. Three issues relating directly to the suitability of peer and self‐assessment in the first year are explored. In the third part, the paper briefly discusses the desirability of implementing peer and self‐assessment, in general, before seeking to extend this specifically to the first year. The paper concludes by recommending that greater use can and should be made of peer and self‐assessment in the first year of university study.     

The Development of Individualized Audio‐Visual Learning Units in Junior High School Biology and the Students’ Achievements

Summaries

English

The development of series of audio‐tutorial units for biological education at junior high school level is described. The effectiveness of these units was tested with students from a Kibbutz school and found to produce higher achievement than a ‘normal’ teaching approach, based on the BSCS Yellow Version (Israeli adaptation) materials. The audio‐tutorial method led to a particularly high achievement gain in the case of girls. The achievement gains resulting from the audio‐tutorial approach are explained in terms of the motivational effect of this method on students.     

Fathers’ Role in Play: Enhancing Early Language and Literacy of Children with Developmental Delays

Fathers and paternal role models make a unique contribution to children’s development. There is some research to suggest that the types of play males engage in with children is typically more active and thus offers unique possibilities for embedding activities for language and literacy development. In this article, we offer suggestions for how preschool special education teachers can assist fathers and paternal role models as they work and play to enhance the language and literacy skills of their children through reading activities, dramatic play, and pretend or free play.     

A Twin Study into the Genetic and Environmental Influences on Academic Performance in Science in nine‐year‐old Boys and Girls

We investigated for the first time the genetic and environmental aetiology behind scientific achievement in primary school children, with a special focus on possible aetiological differences for boys and girls. For a representative community sample of 2,602 twin pairs assessed at age nine years, scientific achievement in school was rated by teachers based on National Curriculum criteria in three domains: Scientific Enquiry, Life Processes, and Physical Processes. Results indicate that genetic influences account for over 60% of the variance in scientific achievement, with environmental influences accounting for the remaining variance. Environmental influences were mainly of the non‐shared variety, suggesting that children from the same family experience school environments differently. An analysis of sex differences considering differences in means, variances, and aetiology of individual differences found only differences in variance between the sexes, with boys showing greater variance in performance than girls.     

Models of Micro‐Organisms: Children’s knowledge and understanding of micro‐organisms from 7 to 14 years old

Current approaches to science‐technology‐society (STS) education focus primarily on the controversial socio‐scientific issues that arise from the application of science in modern technology. This paper argues for an interdisciplinary approach to STS education that embraces science, technology, history, and social and cultural studies. By employing a case study of traditional papermaking technology, it investigates how the interactions between technology and science can be explored in an authentic societal and cultural context across a historical time span. The term technology‐society‐science (TSS) is used to represent an alternative approach to linking technology, society, and science that aims to redress the imbalance between science and technology, and to resolve the tension between two diverging goals of STS education. The educational implications of this alternative approach to STS education are discussed.     

The Use of Correspondence Training in Improving the In‐class Behaviour of Very Troublesome Secondary School Children

Seven children were identified by staff consensus as being the most troublesome pupils in a comprehensive secondary school. A study was then conducted to examine the effects of ‘say‐do’ correspondence training in reducing the amount of troublesome behaviour engaged in by these pupils in the classroom. Such behaviour was defined as ‘talking out of turn’ and ‘hindering other children’, behaviours which had already been found to be the most common categories of troublesome behaviour for secondary classroom teachers.

A multiple baseline across subjects design was employed which brought about a reduction in these two behaviours for three girls and three boys. The behaviour of a fourth boy, however, did not improve beyond the first half of the intervention period. This outcome is discussed in terms of a general deterioration in behaviour and competing contingencies in the classroom. There was some evidence of the generalisation of effects across settings and an increase in the amount of homework submitted.

These results build upon existing research which shows that correspondence training is a useful strategy for dealing with some common classroom behaviour problems. This paper reports an extension of the application of the correspondence training procedures to secondary school pupils of both sexes and covers a broad range of academic ability.     

Children’s Typically‐Perceived‐Situations of Force and No Force in the Context of Australia and Korea

Typically‐Perceived‐Situation (TPS) refers to the situation rising spontaneously in an individual’s mind when she/he first thinks of a phenomenon or concept. The purpose of this study is to go well beyond the many studies that describe conceptions of force and explore children’s TPS of “force is acting on a thing” and “force is not acting on a thing”, and to do this in the differing contexts of Australia and Korea. Data were collected by drawings and written explanations from 145 Grade 6 Australian children and 150 Grade 6 Korean children. These data showed some significant differences between the Australian children’s and Korean children’s TPSs. For example, considering the whole context of children’s TPS, the contexts of “someone pushes or pulls something” and “someone/something is floating in the air or not moving because there is no gravity” were the most frequent ones, as a “force” and as a “no force” situation respectively, in the case of Australian children, while “a sort of energy is provided into someone/something and they can be active/working” and “a sort of energy is not provided into someone/something and they cannot be active/working”, were most frequent in the case of Korean children. These differences are very likely the consequence of different everyday meanings for the word “force” in the two cultures. In addition, it appears that these children’s TPS affect their judgement of “force” and “no force”.     

Needing to be ‘in the know’: strategies of subordination used by 10–11‐year‐old schoolboys

It is important for educators to understand the tactics used in subordination between young people if they are going to take effective measures to counter them in their pedagogical practice. The paper explores strategies used by schoolboys aged 10–11 years to subordinate and position boys at the bottom of the pupil hierarchy. The findings are based on data gathered from a year‐long empirical study (between 1998 and 1999) set in three UK junior schools which were differentiated by the social characteristics of their intake. The research emphasizes the role of the body in the construction of masculinity. The hegemonic, or most idealized, form of masculinity at each school was constructed around activity and, in particular, various forms of embodied physicality/athleticism (exemplified through skill, strength, fitness and speed), and boys who did not wish to, or who were unable to, use these resources generally found themselves marginalized and/or subordinated. Many of the subordinated forms were symbolically assimilated to femininity, and the paper proposes that the main strategies of subordination can be summarized under the generic heading of ‘difference’. The final section discusses the pervasive use of homophobia and concludes that it should be conceptualized in terms of gender as well as sex.     

Language and Identity Construction of China’s Rural-Urban Migrant Children: An Ethnographic Study in an Urban Public School

This article investigates the identity construction process of China’s rural-urban migrant children through analyses of their discourses and of their use of language. Rural children have relocated to the urban centers with their parents on a massive scale over the past decades as China has undergone rapid economic changes. Many migrant children are able to attend urban public schools, and their identity construction emerges as an important issue that attracts increasing public and scholarly attention. This study draws on ethnographic data and presents four examples to illustrate the complex process of migrant identity construction. The results show that the migrant children deploy a range of linguistic features and claim multiple identities; in order for their identities to be established in social reality, they have to go through negotiation processes in which their identities are evaluated, ratified, challenged, or denied. Language is at the center of such processes.     

Design and Evaluation of a Programme to Promote Prosocial‐Altruistic Behaviour in the School

Abstract

This article describes a programme of educational intervention aimed at the development of prosocial‐altruistic behaviour, and presents a study which evaluated its efficacy. The sample comprised 110 subjects, aged between 10 and 12 years, from four class‐groups. The intervention, which consisted of a series of activities intended to encourage empathy, perspective‐taking, having the concept of a person, and co‐operation, was carried out by the teacher‐tutor of each group in 15 weekly sessions. The pre‐test/post‐test comparisons showed a significant increase in prosocial‐‐altruistic behaviour (measured by a sociogram on “Consoling and Defending” behaviour and a questionnaire on Prosocial behaviour), as well as an improvement in the capacity for perspective‐taking and in the climate in the classroom.     

The Complementary roles of the Headteacher,the Mentor and the Advisory Teacher in Induction and School‐based Teacher Training

This article reports on the findings of a two year research project on the management of new teacher induction in five LEAs (Turner, 1992). Headteachers, mentors and newly qualified teachers in twelve schools were interviewed as were LEA officers, Inspectors and advisory teachers. The analysis showed the key roles of headteacher, mentor and advisory teacher to be different but complementary. The conclusions are drawn from a detailed analysis of some 180 interviews.     

Multilevel Interaction Models and their Use in the Analysis of Large‐scale School Effectiveness Studies

In the present paper we discuss the merits of a general multilevel approach to model analysis of large scale school effectiveness studies.

We briefly review previous research framework which have been used in school effectiveness research and examine critically the assumptions on which they were based and the methodological implications of these assumptions. The general interaction models presented in this paper provide an answer to many of these critiques. Findings from different types of modeling supported the claim that the modeling of school effectiveness studies must be both multilevel and interactive. Achievement is found to be dependent in a very sensitive, non‐additive way, on the particular combination of pupil's home background, his or her general ability, teaching style and other teacher characteristics, the class and the school context in which the pupil learns. Comparisons between parsimonious main effect models with parsimonious interactive ones show that although the explanatory power of interaction models might be slightly smaller, the use of interaction models causes changes in the specification of the models that cannot be ignored.     

A ‘New’ Music Education Program Field Experiments in the First and Fourth Grade of the Norwegian Comprehensive School

Abstract: Lillemyr, O. F. 1980. A ‘New’ Music Education Program. Field Experiments in the First and Fourth Grade of the Norwegian Comprehensive School. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 24,133‐156. Through two field experiments, pupils’ musical achievements resulting from a ‘new’ and the traditional music education program were investigated. The ‘new’ program was founded on a combination of the basic ideas of Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly. In first grade, 34 girls and 38 boys were taught by this program and 27 girls and 33 boys by the traditional type. In fourth grade, 15 girls and 29 boys were given the ‘new’ program and 12 girls and 26 boys the traditional type of program. A posttest‐only control group design was used as a general basis, supplemented by a factorial design for some of the problems and hypotheses. The analyses indicated significantly better musical achievements for pupils taught by the ‘new’ program than for pupils taught by a traditional type of program.     

National Self‐determination and International Dependence: the organisation and control of secondary school examinations in the small states of the Commonwealth

This paper contributes to the literatures on examinations, on self‐determination and dependence, and on small states. It draws particularly on materials for a Commonwealth Secretariat project on examination systems in small states. For the purposes of this paper, small states are defined as ones with populations below 3 million. The Commonwealth has 32 such states, scattered in different parts of the world.

Review of systems for external secondary school examinations shows three basic models. Some small states operate their own examination systems, some participate in regional bodies, and some make use of examinations set in other countries. The paper notes the advantages and disadvantages of each model, and the reasons for variations.